It's Friday night, y'all. Time for #wenchwatches
Tonight: #superman1978
I have a odd relationship with this film. I didn't much care for it, since it felt more like a fantasy to my little kid self, and I was (and still am) all about the sci-fi.
It didn't help either that my sibling -- who ended up on the opposite side of the 2025 USian political divide -- *loved* this film. He'd rewatch it several times, and make me watch it with him. In particular, he loved the sequel, Superman II.
I did get around to watching again years and years after estrangement, and I recall it being...okay. With the recent death of Gene Hackman, however, I wanted to give it a second look. We've seen him in the background of several films on previous #wenchwatches , but only as a villain in one -- The Quick and the Dead. Here, his Lex Luthor is much, much more fun.
Let's watch!
The court scene right after the intro sequence continues to be deliciously iconic, even 47 years later. A beam of light and a pair of rotating rings hold our three antagonists captive. Rear projected floating heads in monochrome look down in judgement.
It's a minimalism that sticks in the mind. Indeed it became part of the greater cultural zeitgeist. Lampooned, referenced, and homaged, repeatedly ever since. The looming heads in particular have a kind of final gravitas that stuck with me ever since the first viewing:
"Guilty".
The look of Krypton continues the feeling of simple, but effective design choices. Their glowing outfits achieved by use of microscopic retroreflectors. Only the outline of each person's crest in black as the only detail. As much as I like the effect, it can make the scenes with multiple people harder to watch. The backsplash of light overpowering.
The icy, crystalline nature of the architecture and technology makes for an impressive portrayal of an alien planet. In fact, the only color we get is on Jo-El's blanket and the boiling red Kryptonian sun. Simple elements altogether, but when followed to their conclusion creates an effective design.
The use of retroreflective coating and the boiling sun makes the destruction of the planet even more convincing. No longer overwhelmed with angelic light, we're subsumed into a hellish conflagration without a need for a costume change. It's damn, damn clever, working well with the budget.
It makes the sudden crash of Kal-el's ornament-like craft into an unremarkable blue-green world in the Saggitrarian arm of the Milk Way all the more impressive.
@socketwench - The Superman movie was my first introduction to Superman. I loved the ince-and-crystal Krypton so much that when I finally saw the comic version of KRypton, I was so dissapointed. I wish they'd stuck with this for the DCAU, but even there, they stuck more with the comic....
